People in the office eventually realize that I ride to work. There’s no other explanation for the Hi-Viz jacket with body armor, the black buckled boots that could have been lifted from an infantry museum, the message from my mechanic that the new chain and rear sprocket went on just fine. The jacket yields to a suit, and the boots to more reasonable shoes, but the mind set of motorcycle survival remains with me throughout the working day. For two-wheeled survivors, riding isn’t an escape from speed limits and other restrictions of responsible society. It has nothing in common with the masked man who pops a wheelie the entire length of the Girard Street Bridge in Philadelphia. Instead, it’s total focus: predicting which cars will abruptly turn in front of me, scanning the road constantly for debris and obstacles, and always checking mirrors before I stop, for the texting driver too close who doesn’t notice the red light or me. Three rules of cycle survival have also served me well in the courtroom: (1) look well ahead; (2) look where you want to go (not where you don’t); and (3) develop total situational awareness. Aside from the rules, there is also the realization that something unexpected happens on every ride, from the left lane vanishing without warning in a construction zone, to the cloudburst on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, in the mountains near Pittsburgh, surrounded by semi-trailers. Aside from preparation, the ability to improvise under deteriorating conditions is another necessary aspect of trial work.

1. Look Well Ahead

Since we are not encased in metal and lack seat belts with airbags, it’s essential for the rider to see problems far down the road, before the drivers do. It’s too late to notice a broken muffler in the roadway when you are about to ride over it, too late to realize you are in a blind spot when the car in the neighboring lane drifts towards you like a browsing whale, too late when the deer is literally in your headlights. The same holds true for trial work. For instance, it’s generally too late to compose your closing argument the night before the jury will hear it. I start working on it days before, during the lawyer down-time that accompanies the Court’s opening instructions to the jury. I write down what was so important that everyone heard it at the beginning, even those not finally selected as jurors. There’s the definition of reasonable doubt – a standard that is exceedingly high by design because a false positive (the innocent convicted) is the ultimate system breakdown in criminal justice. It’s not a stretch to tell the jury that beyond a reasonable doubt is the key to justice, the word that’s carved above the southern pedestrian exit from City Hall, looking down the Avenue of the Arts.

There’s also the lack of any obligation on the part of the defendant to testify, although in an age of instant social media commentary about anything, it’s a rare case in 2016 where my client does not tell his side of the story, as messy as the telling may eventually become. When that happens, the instruction that defendant had every right to remain silent earns him a gold star: He took the stand despite no obligation to do so (and it’s no surprise that an A.D.A. with college and law degrees was able to occasionally outsmart him in the process). Finally, there’s the instruction that the comparative number of witnesses called by one side or the other does not matter. Fortunately, the criminal justice system does not teach jurors the approach that General Nathan B. Forrest followed during the Civil War, of “getting there firstest with the mostest.” At trial, the first to go with the most witnesses is inevitably the Commonwealth. At my most recent jury trial this past June, the Commonwealth called the alleged victim, followed by a responding officer, the detective who took my client’s statement in broken English, and the sergeant who retrieved the surveillance video that ultimately acquitted my client of Aggravated Assault. When it was our turn, the sole witness was the defendant, because his English-fluent daughter could not take time from her job as a medical assistant on the Main Line, and his former spouse had left him over the financial pressures that followed criminal charges and temporary incarceration. The Court’s opening instructions to potential jurors provide a good framework for closing argument, and the length of these instructions generally gives defense counsel a good hour or so to work on the closing before testimony even begins.

The importance of looking well ahead surfaces during many other aspects of trial. It’s too late to fret over a bad answer when you still have good issues to cover with the same witness. Getting the negatives out of the way on direct, before the Commonwealth takes them out on cross-examination, is another way of looking well ahead. By the time the Commonwealth asks your client about his theft conviction from five years ago, they will already have heard it from the defendant, with an explanation that when he was guilty he entered a plea, but not in this case. Overall, it’s too late for regrets when there’s still time to salvage the situation down the road. So look well ahead.

2. Look where you want to go (not where you don’t)

A strange but absolute rule of cycling is that the bike will go where you look, at any speed and under any conditions. It’s a mysterious bond between man and machine, but I am told that horses do the same thing. If I look at the slippery rail tracks that occupy the middle of 12^th Street southbound towards Center City on a rainy evening leaving the office, I will inevitably ride on them, with potentially disastrous (or at least embarrassing) consequences. If I had looked this morning at the metal plate that the Streets Department had loosely nailed down to cover an expanding sinkhole under Kelly Drive inbound, there’s an excellent chance I would have hit one of the fastening spikes head on. This tendency is known as object fixation, and the cure is to look well ahead. If you look well ahead to the exit of a curve, moderate your speed going in and gently accelerate coming out, you will arrive safely at that exit point. But if you look at the guardrail at the edge of the same road, there’s an equally strong chance you will run into it and miss dinner with family.

If we look where we want to go during cross-examination, we will focus on the three issues that matter, and end on a high note. If we look where we don’t want to go, we will ask one question too many, argue with the witness in a futile attempt to undue the damage, and then give up on the lowest note of all – an objection sustained on cross. My discipline for cross-examination preparation is to first identify the handful of issues that will actually matter with a given witness, and then write each question out, limited to a single line of word-processed text. This forces me to be brief, and to truly ask one question instead of the compound, endless type that elicits uncomprehending silence from the witness, and confusion from the jury. I began this discipline as an associate at White and Williams, as a way to prepare for depositions of plaintiffs and their experts, people who would readily steamroll an inexperienced and nervous young lawyer. The partners I worked for derided the practice, since they did not see it as billable activity. I cut my own hours doing it, but persisted. What I should have explained to the partners was that I never actually read the questions I write out in advance. Instead, this level of preparation frees me to listen more intently to the witness, follow their lead down unexpected areas of inquiry, and finish one topic area before moving on to the next. This type of preparation also frees me from the need to take detailed notes, which I have frankly never understood in trials or depositions. It’s impossible to think of the next question while writing down the answer to the question that preceded it, and since nobody has a written record of what the witness just said, attempting to generate a verbatim transcription is a waste of time, an activity that would require the jurors to accept your recollection as true, as evidence, when they have just been told that nothing the lawyers say is evidence. Looking well ahead shows in preparation, and in the crispness of the questions we ask. In court as on the road, look where you want to go, and you will tend to end up there.

3. Develop total situational awareness

Total situational awareness (TSA) is the result of good riding habits, practiced for years, that keep me out of trouble before it happens. Looking back to a different context, TSA also let me realize (as a music student at Juilliard in the late 1980s) when the audience was losing interest, and to accordingly bring the Bach suite I was performing to a more rapid conclusion than usual. TSA supports the now involuntary reflex of checking my mirrors while coming to a stop, for when the car in back of me is not stopping and I need to accelerate from danger. TSA also encourages me to move away from the pit bull straining at the leash, to notice a wooden produce crate about to detach from the truck in front of me, to anticipate the myriad brewing hazards that a car driver has no reason to be concerned about. There is undeniably a sixth sense of trial, where TSA guides you in a course of action that is not taught anywhere but in the school of life. In the aggravated assault case I mentioned previously, I began my closing argument with two words: “I’m disappointed.” Having caught the jury’s attention by starting not with a call to arms, not with the injustice of it all, but with an apology, I explained that I was disappointed with the complaining witness, for dismissing my client’s concerns about the property damage he had caused as “bullshit,” disappointed with my client’s son (for being the one who actually punched the complainant in retaliation) and most of all disappointed with my client, for not simply walking away – going back inside the apartment building where he worked as a superintendent and allowing the complainant to continue his rant over the perceived deficiencies of the building. I then reminded the jury that this trial was not about manners or morality, but instead about deciding if the evidence supported, beyond a reasonable doubt, all elements of the First Degree Felony Known as Aggravated Assault. Ultimately, the jury agreed that it did not.

The theme of disappointment was not something I had worked into my advance outline prior to closing argument. Similar to my preparation for cross-examination, I identify at most five areas for discussion with the jury (mainly because I cannot remember more than that without notes), and then write a series of single sentence observations under each topic. I never use the outline before the jury, but find that I can reliably visualize it, especially if I succeeded in making it sufficiently compact to fit on one sheet of legal-sized paper going sideways in landscape mode. In preparing the outline for this closing, the opener eluded me until minutes before I stood up, and the only way I can explain it now is as an instance of TSA. The jury needed to hear that what they had just seen on video represented failures by all concerned. They needed confirmation that my client should not have deployed a box cutter after enduring five minutes of insults and obscene gestures from the complaining witness, but that still did not result in Aggravated Assault, where as my client explained on the stand, no contact was either intended or accomplished.

The more cases you try, the more that TSA reminds you to apologize and rephrase for the witness who actually did understand your question but pretends not to, and to look interested and perhaps even take notes as the judge gives a closing charge to the jury that you have heard many times before. TSA ensures that you do not bore the jury, infuriate the judge, or alienate your adversary to the extent they will do anything to see you fall.

4. Closing thoughts – sometimes you must improvise

Rules help, but it is also important to function when the foundation on which the rules operate has been pulled out from under you. On a recent Friday in August without a hint of rain, I could not resist riding from Philadelphia to Newark, NJ for a Rule 16 scheduling conference. The practical benefits included parking for free, sufficiently distant from the Courthouse so I could stow my riding gear and assume a lawyerly appearance in private, although a man watching from a Brazilian café across the street compared my quick-change act favorably to Clark Kent’s. The conference went well, with the reasonably prompt deadlines we want in a plaintiff’s case, but by the time I emerged from the Courthouse around Noon, it was easily 95 degrees. I went through the familiar drill of unlocking the bike, pulling on armored over-pants, jacket, then full-face helmet followed by gloves, get on, power on, pull in the clutch and press the start button, only to get nothing. Not even a click. I could have despaired, panicked and made an embarrassing call home. Instead, I realized that the contact points of the starter motor might be wearing out, and (with a short prayer) rolled the bike forward a few feet. This time I got a small spark, and after a few more feet of rolling, success. I was soon taking the long way home, riding west across New Jersey on Route 78 to Easton, so I could visit a colleague in Allentown before taking the Turnpike extension south, back home to East Falls (where of course, the bike started without incident the following morning).

I experienced the courtroom equivalent of sudden starter failure in an armed robbery trial last Fall, when the co-defendant who had previously been on board to exonerate my client as a friend who just stood there — while co-D did the brandishing, the threatening and the robbing — went suddenly and spectacularly south. He initially refused to testify at all, saying there was no need for it, since the Affidavit he had previously supplied me said it all. The presiding judge leaned towards me upon hearing this, apparently concerned that I had held something back from reciprocal discovery. I had not, and our judge assumed a more relaxed posture as the A.D.A. handing the case held up her copy of the Affidavit. Seeing that I had played fair, our judge reciprocated by dismissing the jury and then admonishing the witness that he had no Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify since he had pleaded guilty and been sentenced for the same conduct at issue, and that he would be held in contempt and sentenced to five months and 29 days of additional consecutive custody for each question he refused to answer. This solved the reluctance to testify problem, but then the substance went south as well. The co-defendant who previously admitted to having the silver revolver now denied having any gun at all, invoking a silver-colored cell phone, and being pressured to plead guilty by a mean lawyer to something he did not do. Fortunately he was willing to authenticate the transcripts of prison phone calls where he repeatedly stated that my client had done nothing wrong, and this was enough for the jury to acquit my client of 2 of 3 charges, and for him to avoid a mandatory minimum for firearms used in connection with a crime of violence.

Looking back, the rules would not have prevented this temporary blow-up, but they did provide some guidance on how to get out of it. Looking well ahead did not reveal the impending witness meltdown, but looking where I wanted to go reminded me to use the telephone transcripts to bring this recalcitrant witness back to reality. Thanks to playing fair in discovery, the judge stepped in, and despite the witness going south on substance, he admitted to making the prior statements that removed my client from being an accessory to armed robbery. Like riding across town or cross-country, a distinguishing characteristic of trial work is unpredictability. Rules help, but sometimes, through no fault of our own, it comes down to improvising. If we didn’t like the risk, we wouldn’t be doing this.

Richard H. Maurer

JD: Georgetown 1993

Ride: Suzuki V-Strom 650

August 26, 2016

On October 14, 2014, Justice Scalia dissented with Justices Thomas and Ginsburg from the denial of certiorari in Jones v. United States, No. 13-10026, where the defendants were convicted of individual crack sales, acquitted of conspiracy PWID, but then sentenced to very long terms of incarceration after “the sentencing judge found that petitioners had engaged in the conspiracy of which the jury acquitted them.”

After surveying Alleyne and Apprendi, Justice Scalia says: “It unavoidably follows that any fact necessary to prevent a sentence from being substantively unreasonable — thereby exposing the defendant to the longer sentence — is an element that must be either admitted by the defendant or found by the jury.”  The only exception that Justice Scalia would apparently recognize is the fact of a prior conviction.

It’s a strange statement, but seems to break new ground.  In more basic terms, I am guardedly optimistic that, in Scalia’s view: “A sentence that is lengthened by judicial factfinding (other than the fact of a prior conviction) is substantively unreasonable unless the facts were found by a jury.”

If this view becomes the law, then it’s a significant change, and many lengthy federal sentences would become ripe for review, at least where the defendant raised substantive unreasonableness on direct appeal.  Perhaps my friend won’t be serving 105 years after all.

With one hour left to Richmond, there are still no leaves on the trees but it’s looking more southern out the window of the cafe car. People come here to eat, not talk, which makes a better place to write than the seat I left two cars back. The train passed a farm with a couple of heavily rusted metal house trailers in the yard and an array of junk, mostly tires and other automotive debris, leaning against a barbwire fence which extended off from the train tracks into high dead grass. The thin asphalt roads stretching through passing shallow valleys have no sidewalks and are lined with sand. Glimpses of water occasionally show to the left of the train, although I don’t know if this is a wider part of the Potomac River, or part of Chesapeake Bay.

I assume trains ran on this track during the Civil War, since the description of Northeast Corridor renovations back at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia stated that most of the corridor track had been initially laid in the 1830s. If trains did run on this path, they must have carried a lot of dead and dying soldiers back to Washington, because the Army of the Potomac body count for the Wilderness, Peninsular and other Virginia campaigns was appalling, even by tolerance levels shaped by 20th century warfare. My understanding is that none of the northern generals were very competent, but that Grant made the fewest mistakes. I wonder if they talked their way through each battle, far from danger in the rear, like incompetents charged with responsibilities beyond their capacity today.

I am southbound to participate in another federal action, a criminal case against one of my few friends from high school in New Jersey which is scheduled for sentencing tomorrow morning. The stakes are high — Rory’s lawyer advised me that the Judge shows every sign of imposing a life sentence for a plan by which Rory charged the government top dollar for a large quantity of items passed off as ultralight and superstrong fasteners for aerospace applications, but in reality, they were no different from the nuts and bolts available from a neighborhood TrueValue hardware store. I am told that the federal government cannot tie any equipment failures to Rory’s fasteners, which under different circumstances could be welcome publicity for America’s Favorite Hardware Store (“we keep ‘em flying!”). It seems that any federal oversight involved in these purchases was either too well-entertained or inattentive to notice that the same fasteners could have been obtained over the counter for a few cents each, but I don’t expect to hear any of that perspective at sentencing. The problem for Rory is that he implemented this plan twice, once in the mid-1990s after which he was convicted and received several years in federal custody, and again around 2004, after which he got even more creative. According the archives of “America’s Most Wanted,” Rory converted his Phase II proceeds into gold which he was able to get across the Mexican border through the services of unsuspecting drug mules, and then got himself across the border, after which he faked his own death in the breakers off Cancun, arranged heavy publicity for that event to lull the FBI into complacence, and then went into comfortable hiding for about four years until someone blew his cover. Based on my memory of Rory’s dark hair, rugged features and large blue eyes, his arrest may have resulted from a relationship gone vengefully wrong.

Rory called me unexpectedly in my office about three years ago, at which point he was in a Mexican jail awaiting extradition to the Eastern District of Virginia. Scared of a federally-recorded phone call and not wanting to skew my chances for partner in the upcoming firm election, I merely advised Rory that the federal government normally obtains extradition, particularly of a US Citizen held by Mexico, and that the best use of his money was to retain a highly competent, high stakes criminal defense lawyer after his return to the US. I could not be that person because I am not admitted to practice law in Virginia, but have regretted not giving more help to Rory when he needed it. Many years ago, from 1977-80, Rory had been a good friend, especially in high school when differences in class and affluence were becoming noticable. Unlike some, Rory never hesitated to include me at a lunch room table or invite me to a party because I did not live in Lake Mohawk or come from an affluent family. Rory was also guilty on both counts. He lived north of Sparta on a twisty rural road, and when asked what his Dad did for a living, he would answer “industrial fasteners,” a term which led a good number of students and not a few teachers to chuckle or request clarification. What Rory meant was “screws,” but that term would have resulted in even more laughter. Thirty years later, that’s what Rory is alleged to have done to the federal government.

It’s almost dark now and we have reached the outskirts of Richmond. The train passes groups of well-kept clapboard houses in colonial colors of blue and yellow, with lots of Christmas lights, separated by patches of forest. Then we pull into Staples Mill station, which appears to be in the middle of nowhere. According to my Richmond mass transit schedule, the last bus to Center City left at 5 pm, and it is now ten after. The parking lot is empty in the growing darkness, the woman who sat next to me in the train pretends not to see me as she climbs into a waiting vehicle, but suddenly a cab pulls up. Not wanting to pay but realizing there are no other options, I hail the cab, which pops the trunk, closes the door, and then speeds off.
I note the lack of mass transit to City Center, and my driver agrees, “There ain’t none.” According to his card, my driver is Bubba, and within minutes we are engaged in a detailed discussion of Civil War history. I ask if Richmond burned to the ground like Atlanta while assuming it was, since this was the capital of the Confederacy. Bubba clears his throat and answers in a cigarette baritone that no, in fact a volunteer regiment of free blacks who served the Confederacy started a fire by setting off the remains of an ammunition dump, which led Sherman approaching from the west to believe that Grant had taken the city, and led Grant approaching from the south to believe that Sherman had taken the city, with the conclusion that each hostile force deferred to the other and advanced in a different direction. By the resulting miracle, Richmond was spared destruction, and the City is filled with antebellum red brick structures, many more than would have withstood a large hostile force. This summer I visited Czestochowa, home of the shrine of the Black Madonna who had repeatedly saved Poland from complete foreign devastation and was the only explanation for how a small Polish force was able to rout Stalin’s Red Army at the gates of Warsaw in 1920. She is a celebrity and I wonder if that status grew up around the Black Guard who apparently saved Richmond. I will look for a statue on the way to federal court.

Tarrant’s was recommended by the front desk for dinner. I walked a different route then the recommended path to get there, and on the way passed a small backalley establishment with a sign saying “Tarrant’s Take Out.” I went around the corner, to the entrance of the main restaurant, but the prices sent me back to Take Out, where on the table in front of me soon appeared an economical spread, with unlimited space to write in an empty large-sized booth, and no customers to turn on the TV. There’s no need for ceremony when eating alone, and the bright light by the takeout counter made it easier to type. The absence of company made dinner go fast and I was back at the hotel in less than one hour, talking with Rory’s counsel while pacing the hotel courtyard about what I planned to say. We agreed that recollections about school and Rory being a good friend would be helpful. A new point I formed in the train — that the emphasis in the time we entered the work force (late 80s/early 90s) — was money, and that Rory actually responded to these pressures effectively (his conduct briefly made him a millionnaire), is discarded as too nuanced for judicial consumption. After a third glass of Chardonnay I fall soundly asleep, and unusually for me, don’t wake until the alarm rings at 7.

Richmond again made a good impression as I walked to Court, along a shopping street going east-west like Chestnut in Philadelphia. The street was clean, sunlit, lined with historic redbrick buildings but unfortunately empty, and not just because it was 8:30 in the morning. The delicate storefronts seemed to date from the 1920s, with glassbox windows to display wares, decorative floor tiles at the entryways, imaginative floral details in the brick exterior walls. All still waiting for customers. Fashion clothing, art supplies, jewelry, toys, “Richmond’s Television Store,” each had a rent sign plastered where at this time of year, Christmas sale announcements should be. Most stores looked forlorn, as if they have not seen a customer for a very long time. Do they wait out the years conscious of time, or go to sleep until the people come back? The street was likely a victim of white flight to the suburbs followed by twenty years of big-box retail. Big box, which convinced a population that it should purchase large numbers of synthetic items from China and then put them in landfills when they broke, has not been brought to justice.

I got to Court early and was reviewing my notes when Rory suddenly emerged from a door in the wall and was brought to counsel table by two US Marshals. He was handcuffed and manacled in a blue prison suit, with pants leading down to a pair of shockingly red athletic shoes which I suppose he purchased in Mexico. I wave, he waves back and the Marshals allow me to shake his hand. A keen mind and prodigious memory is immediately apparent. Rory asks me about a girl I liked in 9th grade, who I have not thought of in years, then if I kept playing bass guitar. His questions are as if handed out of a time capsule. There was no serious thought of playing bass after I moved to Oklahoma, because cello made me well known, and the better I got the more popular I became. After a few minutes, Rory’s lawyer comes out the same door as Rory, and I turn over the conversation to him. Next to emerge is the Judge, and soon the proceedings are underway.

It becomes rapidly clear that the federal deck is towering over the defense side of this Courtroom, and that I am the only card Rory has. The Judge gives Rory one break, a two-point downward departure because his modus really did not expose anyone to death or serious bodily injury, but gives the government everything else it asks for, stacking up enhancements based on terms including “sophisticated operation” and “criminal mastermind” until the guideline sentence range, if the punishments are all made consecutive, is 105 years in federal prison, until the year 2116. Despite the overwhelming odds of obtaining a life sentence, the government presents the testimony of a sex offender awaiting conviction for failure to register, concerning comments which Rory supposedly made in jail about how to organize a breakout, including a hint that it would be helpful to blow up a police vehicle in the process. This talk between two bored inmates reminds me of two boys comparing notes on an issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine when they should be paying attention in Theology class, a discussion that Rory and I could have easily had in Tenth Grade without intending real consequences. Despite the unlikely scenario described by the witness (which involved him and Rory conversing freely through ventilation ducts under the watchful eye of corrections personnel), and his unsavory past (Roger’s lawyer does a good job getting admissions that the witness is a professional snitch), the Judge accepts that Rory actively planned an escape from federal custody, and adds a further two-point enhancement to the mix.

That left me as the second witness of the morning. After acknowledging that my last contact with Rory was in 1980, I added that in my opinion, the fundamentals of personality are formed by age 16, and that is how old Rory was when we last had contact, in correspondence exchanged shortly after I moved to Oklahoma in April of that year because my Dad found a job there. I remembered Rory for being inclusive, explaining that there was always a place at the lunch table or study hall when he was around. Bringing the testimony to the present, I mentioned how the few minutes of catching up that morning reminded me why Rory had been a friend to begin with — sharp intellect, optimism, and somehow still a sense of humor. To close, I invoked the Quaker teaching that every human being contains some of the light of God, and that while the wattage may vary, this is a difference of degree, not presence. I then asked the Judge to impose a sentence which would not extinguish that light for Rory, a sentence which would allow some hope of eventual release from incarceration. To my surprise, this introduced a theme to which the government and the Judge each responded. The government argued in rebuttal that the reason Rory’s accomplices got involved and were eventually convicted was the same inclusiveness I talked about. The Judge, while stating that he believed people did have an inviolable light of God and that Rory should use his abilities to help others in prison, followed the government’s argument and imposed a sentence of 105 years.

Because my train was scheduled to leave in 35 minutes and I had not yet checked out of the hotel, I was only able to meet Rory in cellblock for about 5 minutes. He said it was actually a relief to get sentencing over with, to now move on to the appeal. I expressed interest in getting involved, wished him well and then got out of the Courthouse as fast as possible. Stuck at a red light while running back to the hotel, I remembered that Bubba had given me his card, and he was at the hotel within ten minutes. The sky above Richmond was deep blue as my Taxi left the curb and I wondered if Rory could see it.

With few exceptions, the major trials in my career have happened between Labor Day and Christmas. Working backwards through the last three, there was the six lbs of marijuana in the back of a pickup truck case (defense verdict, December 2013), the class action merits trial (we eventually won, November 2013), and the “unwinnable” case of uncle molesting niece by marriage at a wedding shower (defense verdict, October 2013). In previous years, the timing was similar – US v. Roger Day argument in the Fourth Circuit (October 2012), going all the way back to 2000 (Fulmer v. Swidler, two-week internet defamation trial, November 2000).

This seasonal timing is good, because it coincides with the discipline of back to school, and cool mornings that make it easier to haul boxes and easels to Court.  This year started early, with a defense verdict in a robbery case on September 10, and a trial that almost went on September 16, until it became clear that the Commonwealth’s witnesses were not going to make the nearly six-hour drive from Coudersport to Philadelphia.

My next jury trial is set for September 29, a serious case involving a massive drug debt, illegal handguns and an allegedly terroristic threat. It will be an uphill battle, but something always happens at trial that helps in an unexpected way. Writing up my opening argument and witness examinations, I try to remember that the future is unwritten.

I spent too long, from April 1996 until June 2011, working in two large Philadelphia defense firms defending all manner of civil actions. An important part of this work was processing plaintiff’s discovery requests. I began with the proposition that discovery should be answered promptly, in a reasonably complete manner, with responsive materials either produced immediately, or soon afterwards, subject to the terms of a protective order. I soon learned that this was not the approved way to go, both in terms of billable hours (my way was too quick, too efficient, too inexpensive for the client), and in what the partners perceived as good litigation practice.

Instead, the approved drill was to wait until about three days before the deadline, then request at least another 30 day extension, and then crank out boilerplate responses that consisted of 7/8 objections, with the remainder comprising information that the plaintiff probably already had about the incident. I like to think that my approach to discovery while at Big Law was more accommodating than this, but without the actual responses in front of me, maybe not.  Perhaps because of the pressure on defense firms to maintain billable hours during the ongoing legal recession, it seems that discovery response tactics have grown more blatant.

So it is with some irony that I find myself representing two deserving plaintiffs in a civil rights action, where defense counsel did the following: (1) insist on a confidentiality agreement governing Internal Affairs records for the police officer defendants, before discovery began; (2) demand a six week extension to serve responses to my requests for production of documents; (3) admit, in the belated responses, that two of the officers in question had IA records for excessive use of force; and then (4) refuse to produce those records, on grounds that ANOTHER confidentiality agreement was required before those materials would see the light of day.

A U.S. Magistrate rejected position (4) last week, asking defense counsel, “How could you think that?” but this did not stop the nonsense. Counsel then took the position that she could not produce the IA documents in question because she had not seen them yet.  Today, eight days after the Magistrate’s warning, I was advised that the IA documents have still not been located, but that if they contain information that defense counsel finds to be irrelevant or incorrect, they will still be withheld.

I gave counsel two days to produce the materials, after which I will file a Motion to Compel. It would probably make the most sense to start drafting that document now…

More than two years ago, the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas appointed me to represent a 76-year old man that had been accused of molesting the 12-year old daughter (by a prior relationship) of his 32-year old wife.  The allegations were made suddenly, in June of 2012, with no prior mention of misconduct.  My client, William M., then spent 8 months in the substandard conditions of Philadelphia Prisons, until I obtained his release on House Arrest in March 2013.  House arrest confined my client to a tiny rented bedroom in the rough, Strawberry Mansion part of Philly, without the ability to shop, exercise, or look for the occasional odd job (my client is a skilled cabinet maker by trade, but would pick trash for money).  All requests to relax the boundaries of house arrest were denied, as if I was asking for a Caribbean vacation at state expense. I would occasionally visit him on my way home, he never fails to greet me with a cheerful, “Hello, Mr. Richard.”

Over the months that followed, I learned that William had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009, and with Pyronie’s Disease (you don’t want to know what this does to the privates) in 2010.  In 2011, Willam had received high-dose radiation therapy that rendered him impotent, and otherwise unable to engage in the lurid sexual episodes that the minor witness had described to investigating police.

Trial had been scheduled to start this past Monday, September 15, and with expert testimony from William’s treating physician at the University of Pennsylvania that he could not have engaged in the acts alleged, we were reasonably confident of success.  I prepared for trial throughout the weekend of September 13-14.  What happened next was a prolonged waste of time.

Day 1: After waiting more than two hours, I argued in opposition to the Commonwealth’s request to call a physician to state that the complainant’s lack of physical injury upon examination was still consistent with the alleged assaults.  Aside from the low value of this expert opinion, I advised the Judge that my argument was not, “See, the complainant exam was inconclusive,” but rather “this old man’s illness made spontaneous sexual activity as described by complainant virtually impossible.”  The Court granted the Commonwealth’s motion, giving them a medical expert to even the score with mine, and told us to come back the next day.

Day 2: After waiting more than three hours, we were told that the presiding Judge could not hear our case, since the case before ours would be going to jury trial, and that of the nearly 100 judges of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, none could be found to hear our case with a jury.  My expert, who had cleared his schedule for months in order to testify on September 17, was frustrated by the inability to conclude this.  My client, deprived of the chance to clear his name and get out from under the weight of serious felony charges, was also disappointed.  For my part, going from preparing opening statements to being on indefinite hold was the opposite of what trial lawyers are supposed to do.

At the end, with neither the complaining witness nor her mother ever sighted, the Court at last granted my motion to terminate house arrest, as a result of which my client is finally a free man pending the new trial date.  We have no idea if the complainant and her mother, who now live about 5 1/2 hours from Philadelphia, will ever appear for trial.

So, in the end, what happened? An elderly man with no prior record was deprived of his liberty, first in jail and then on house arrest, from June 12, 2012 until September 16, 2014. A lawyer (that’s me) has devoted a huge amount of time to trial preparation, only to be told to come back in six months. And finally, the judicial system sends a message: It will not reward preparation, timeliness, zeal, or any other traits of a good defense lawyer.  The Judges are too busy with other cases.  What they are, or where they are being tried remains to be seen.  The Criminal Justice Center was virtually empty when William and I left there yesterday afternoon.

Many criminal cases rest on a prosecution claim that because one passenger of a vehicle, or occupant of a room, possessed something that was illegal, then other people in the immediate area are also to blame for possessing the item.  This legal fiction, called “Constructive Possession,” is subject to rigorous proof requirements in Pennsylvania.  In practice, however, Judges tend to overlook the required elements of Constructive Possession in favor of something that could be called Guilt by Association.  

In a recent trial, I overcame this judicial bias by having each defendant (the driver who actually possessed the gun and his front seat passenger who didn’t) testify.  The driver said he didn’t show or tell his passenger about the gun, and the passenger testified that if he knew a gun was present, he would have exited the vehicle immediately.  Without this testimony, it is likely that my client would have been convicted of possessing a handgun, despite the absence of any direct testimony that he knew of its presence.  A piece I recently wrote on the required elements of Constructive Possession follows:

I.          INTRODUCTION 

We put ourselves at serious risk of criminal prosecution when we ride in a car, visit a home, or even walk with a group of friends, if one person among several is carrying drugs, a gun, or something else illegal.  To prove the point, Pennsylvania law provides a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for all “accomplices” (basically, anyone in the immediate area) if a police find a gun in or near an alleged crime scene.  We are not our brother’s keeper, but what our brother is carrying can land us in serious trouble.  Therefore, we provide this guide to the doctrine of constructive possession. 

II.        ELEMENTS OF CONSTRUCTIVE POSSESSION

The Pennsylvania Superior Court says that “constructive possession is the ability to exercise conscious control or dominion over the illegal substance and the intent to exercise that control.”  Commonwealth v. Kirkland, 831 A.2d 607, 610 (Pa. Super. 2003), see also Commonwealth v. Hamm, 301 Pa. Super. 266, 447 A.2d 960, 962 (1982) (“To prove constructive possession of an item, the Commonwealth must show that the defendant had both the intent and the ability to control the item.”).  “At the very least, the evidence must show that the defendant knew of the existence of the item.”  Id. (string citation omitted).  Importantly, a Court “may not infer that [defendant] knew of the weapon’s existence simply from the fact that it was hidden in an automobile.”  Id.  In Hamm, police officers driving “about half a car length” behind the vehicle operated by defendant James Hamm observed a back seat passenger pass an unknown object to the front seat passenger, who was then seen to “bend down in a forward motion as though placing something on the floor in front of him.”  Id. at 961-62.  Hamm pulled over voluntarily (because he recognized the passengers in the unmarked car behind him as local police officers), and as the passengers exited the vehicle, the officers saw a .22 caliber revolver resting on the front floorboard, passenger side.  See id. at 962.

Mr. Hamm was found guilty by a jury of possession of the revolver and of conspiracy to possess the same weapon, but the Superior Court reversed each conviction.  On constructive possession, the Court reasoned that, even if Mr. Hamm had seen the revolver as it was handed to his front seat passenger, “there was no evidence to suggest that [Hamm] knew of the weapon’s existence before it was produced by [the rear seat passenger].”  Id.

            The Superior Court reached a similar conclusion in Commonwealth v. Boatwright, 308 Pa. Super. 41, 453 A.2d 1058 (1982), where it vacated defendant’s conviction for Carrying a Firearm Without a License.  See id., 453 A.2d at 1059.  In Boatwright, City of Pittsburgh police officers responded to a radio call for three “suspicious” men seated in a vehicle parked in front of a residence.  Id. at 1058.  Upon arrival, officers observed Albert Boatwright seated in the front passenger seat of the vehicle, and then watched him “moving towards the left rear” of the vehicle.  Id.  After police ordered all occupants out of the vehicle, they observed a handgun on the floor of the left rear passenger compartment of the vehicle, the same area to which Boatwright had been seen “moving towards.”  Id.  Reviewing the elements of constructive possession, the Court observed that: (1) “the Commonwealth must present evidence to show that [defendant] had both the power to control the firearm and the intent to exercise that control;” and that (2) “mere presence at the scene where the gun was found is not sufficient.”  Id. at 1059.  The Court concluded its analysis by vacating Boatwright’s conviction, because “the only evidence other than mere presence was [the officer’s] testimony that appellant made a movement towards the left rear of the vehicle.”  Id. 

            More recently, and in the context of Possession of a Controlled Substance, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court observed that “the existence of constructive possession of a controlled substance is demonstrated by the ability to exercise a conscious dominion over the illegal substance; the power to control the illegal substance; and the intent to exercise that control.”  Commonwealth v. Johnson, 611 Pa. 381, 26 A.2d 1078, 1093 (2011).   The Johnson Court went on to hold that the lower courts had erroneously concluded that the defendant, Omar Johnson, could be held in constructive possession of a large quantity of drugs found in a co-defendant’s vehicle, which Johnson did not own, control, or enter.  See id. at 1095.

III.       CONCLUSION

The cases discussed above show that defendant can win in a constructive possession case, but the key to success is defense counsel who understands how to battle the Commonwealth on each element of constructive possession.